COMMON ERROR: TRANSLATING ‘IR/ESTAR A LA CALLE’:

In our Skype English classes many Spanish students make a mistake translating the following sentence: ‘voy a la calle’. As you may realise, this phrase means that you will be outside of your house whether you will be in a park, in a bar, in a plaza, by the side of the road etc. Thus, to say ‘I’m going out to the street’ is incorrect unless you are only going to be actually ‘in the street’. What we would say in most cases to cover everything would be: ‘I’m going outside/out/outdoors’ which covers all situations that are not actually when you are in a building (indoors). Similarly, if we say ‘estoy en la calle’, it would be incorrect to say ‘I am in the street’ unless you are really specifically in a street. We would need to say ‘I am outside or outdoors’ or something similar.